"Marvin Long, Jr." wrote:
>
> On Mon, 1 Oct 2001, Baardwijk, J. van DTO/SLWPD/RZO/BOZO wrote:
>
> > > Taliban delenda est!
> >
> > Which translates into English as...?
>
> "The Taliban must be destroyed," I think. IIRC, it's a riff on "Carthago
> delenda est," or "Carthage must be destroyed." Which, considering what
> Rome did to Carthage, probably isn't the best of analogies since the
> historical prcedent involved laying waste to an entire nation--precisely
> what we claim we don't want to do.
But you note that what was said was "TALIBAN delenda est" and not
"Afghanistan delenda est." I'd take great exception to the latter. If
the Taliban can be destroyed without doing much damage to the rest of
Afghanistan, then it's a reasonable sentiment, IMHO.
Julia
